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A Professional Cover for Your Self-Published Book: Tips from a Cover Designer

March 30, 2007 by Susan Wenger, Designer

If you’re an author on the brink of self-publishing, you probably understand the importance of cover design. After spending countless hours on your manuscript, polishing each word to perfection, you want a cover that will make potential readers take notice—something that will entice them to find out what’s inside.

What you might not know is that you are an integral part of the design process. As a cover designer, I’ve seen how authors’ contributions can make or break the final results.

Do I have your attention? Excellent. Here are a few things you can do to help ensure that your cover will look attractive and professional.

1. Come up with a cover-friendly title.

Conventional marketing wisdom dictates that a book title should be visible from six feet away. This means it needs to be reasonably large, and it shouldn’t compete with the rest of the design. If your title is excessively long, there’s only so much a designer can do to make it stand out.

Think about how it will look in print. The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog: A History of Keyboard Interface from QWERTY to DVORAK may have sounded great in your head, but it’s not going to jump out at potential readers when crammed into a 6”x9” space. Especially if it’s accompanied by graphics.

Speaking of graphics . . .

2. If you are submitting your own image, proceed with caution.

Some POD publishers give authors a discount for providing their own cover image. The reasoning behind this is simple: author saves money, designer doesn’t have to root around for a suitable graphic, everyone is happy. Unfortunately, authors often shoot themselves in the foot by using images that are, shall we say, not ready for prime time.

A few things to avoid:

Bad photos

There’s only so much your designer can do with a photograph that’s out of focus, too dark, low-resolution, etc. With an arsenal of Photoshop tools she should be able to improve it, but it won’t look as though it could’ve graced the cover of a Simon & Schuster novel.

If you are not an experienced photographer, try to find someone more talented to take your photo for you. If your friends aren’t any better at this than you are, take a LOT of your own pictures. Get the hang of holding the camera steady. Shoot from different angles. Zoom in and out. Experiment. When you’re finished, sort through the fruits of your labor and pick out the best shots. With an array of options, your designer can choose the most suitable image, and you’ll get more professional-looking results.

Incidentally, if you’re using a digital camera, ask someone how to set it so the pictures are at a high enough resolution for print. Your designer will be much happier to talk to you about this before your shoot than after you’ve given him a heartbreakingly beautiful 3”x5” image at 72 dpi.

Bad illustrations, part I: Amateur hour

Some authors try to cut costs by drawing a picture themselves or having a friend or family member do it. This is probably a bad idea unless the person in question has a lot of artistic talent and spends huge chunks of her life honing her craft. Otherwise, that illustration sketched by your second cousin will look like it’s been sketched by your second cousin, if you know what I mean.

Should you want to go this route anyway, then for the love of all that is good and holy, please tell your would-be illustrator not to use crayon.

Bad illustrations, part II: Art for art’s sake

Hiring a professional artist doesn’t guarantee a professional cover. Before he takes your project on, find out whether he has any experience with cover design. An illustrator lacking this experience might not take context into account. Even with the loveliest image in the world, the results may not be what you expect if the designer has to shrink it down, fade part of it out, or slap a banner over it to make the title fit.

If your artist-for-hire has never worked on a book cover, give him the dimensions (if you know what they are) and tell him that you need room for the title and your name. A little communication here can go a long way.

Which brings us to our last section . . .

3. Keep the lines of communication open.

This involves more than telling your designer what you want everything to look like, though that’s obviously an important step. Here’s a checklist of things you’ll want to address:

Provide a summary

A good cover doesn’t simply contain a compelling design—it should also convey a sense of what lies within. Unfortunately, the odds that your designer has read your entire book are slim to none. She doesn’t have time. The best she can do is look to your title for clues and skim through parts of the book to get an idea of its essence. Sometimes this yields good results, other times not.

To avoid mismatches (imagine a tranquil sunrise on the cover of The Sun Also Rises), give your designer a written summary of your book. This summary should include important plot points, themes, and general tone. Is your book hip and cynical? Hopeful and inspiring? Is there one passage you feel represents the work as a whole? It’s likely that depicting a specific scene won’t be possible unless you work with an illustrator—and that may be out of your budget—but spelling out these details will give your designer a better sense of what the book’s about, and what directions she might take.

Share your ideas

Authors who have a clear vision of their book’s design are generally pretty good about sharing it. However, if you have no idea what you want and you’re planning to leave it up to your designer, take a moment to think about what you assume it will look like. In your mind’s eye, is the image a photo or a cartoon? Abstract, impressionistic, or realistic? Bright or subdued? You may truly have no preference, and that’s fine, but make sure that’s the case before saying, “You’re the expert; do whatever you want.”

Ask for feedback

Designers at POD publishing houses have two jobs: design and customer service. As designers, it’s our responsibility to create a cover that will help sell your book. As customer service types, it’s our responsibility to honor your requests to the best of our ability. Sometimes these tasks are mutually exclusive. A customer-is-always-right approach can lead to bad design if there are serious problems with the cover idea or image you’ve provided.

Will your designer tell you if he thinks your cover concept isn’t working? That depends on a number of factors, including:

1. Your goal for the book. Are you getting your work in print because you want to give copies to your family members as gifts, or do you want to find a wider, paying audience for it?
2. The focus of the publisher. Do they try to publish as many books as possible or make each book as marketable as possible?
3. Your timeline. Discussing cover options, then searching for a new image or waiting for you to send new materials can delay completion of a project. If you’re in a hurry, your designer will be more reluctant to do this.
4. Your receptiveness. Have you given the impression that you’ll be offended or hurt if your designer disagrees with you about something? He’ll take that into account before pointing out problems with your concept or image.

For best results, ask for feedback. Indicate that you’re open to criticism. Your designer will be more willing to give you an honest assessment when you do. Once he’s given you his recommendation, consider it seriously. Chances are he knows more about what works and what sells than you do.

That’s not to say you should simply lie down and accept suggestions you think are terrible. Designers are like doctors—there are good and bad ones out there—and if you suspect yours is steering you wrong, get a second opinion.

* * *

We designers take pride in our work, and we want your cover to represent the rest of your book in a professional and eye-catching way. When you work with us to ensure that all the elements are in place, you’ll be much more pleased with the results.

Happy publishing.

Your Book and the Library of Congress (Copyright)

March 21, 2007 by Atilla Vekony, Publishing Information Manager The third way the Library of Congress may be involved in your book is through the U.S. Copyright Office, which is located within the Library of Congress. In the previous two posts about the Library of Congress we discussed the LCCN and the CIP data.

Copyright Registration

Registering your book with the copyright office has nothing to do with the LCCN, the CIP data, or with cataloging your book. Therefore, getting an LCCN or CIP data for your book from the Library of Congress does not amount to copyright registration with the U.S. Copyright Office. If you so choose, Wheatmark can secure copyright registration for your book, or you can apply for one yourself directly.

Keep in mind that registering your work with the U.S. Copyright Office does not establish your copyright for your book; rather, it confirms it. Your work is already under copyright protection whether you register it or not. Once you have finished writing your original work, nobody else has the "right to copy" it, therefore you already enjoy copyright protection in the U.S. Wheatmark will print "Copyright © 2007 Jane Doe" on the copyright page of your book in your name whether you want it registered officially or not.

Your Book and the Library of Congress (CIP Data)

March 20, 2007 by Atilla Vekony, Publishing Information Manager We have been discussing the Library of Congress's role in the publication of your book. Read about the LCCN, the previous post, here. Today we will discuss the CIP data.

Cataloging-in-Publication (CIP) Data

Because current cataloging data will not be available by the time your book is released, the Library of Congress provides a shortened, barebones cataloging copy to publishers so that they could print that in the book in advance. CIP data, a bibliographic record based on the subject and content of your book, allows libraries to easily catalog your book. This way when librarians receive your newly published book, there will be already enough information in the book for them, even though the Library of Congress hasn't yet created the definitive cataloging data.

When you publish your book with Wheatmark, we can provide cataloging-in-publication data for your book and include it on the copyright page. Your CIP data will be prepared by professional catalogers.

Finally, the Library of Congress provides yet another service to authors and publishers: copyright registration. We'll take a look at this tomorrow.

Your Book and the Library of Congress (LCCN)

March 18, 2007 by Atilla Vekony, Publishing Information Manager "Will you send my book to the Library of Congress?"

This is a question we often hear from our authors. The answer is yes – unless we misunderstood your question.

Let me explain.

The Library of Congress may be involved in several different aspects of your book's publication. The first one is the LCCN.

LCCN -- The Library of Congress Control Number

Local librarians want to be able to shelve a new book correctly as soon as they receive it. They do not have the time to catalog every single book upon receipt, so they turn to the Library of Congress (LOC) for help. They connect to the library's database and download the cataloging data that has been prepared by the LOC's catalogers. To find the data, they use the LCCN that's printed in your book.

Thus, before your book is published, Wheatmark applies for an LCCN from the Library of Congress. This number is then printed in your book, so that when a librarian needs to know how to shelve it, he or she will be able to look it up in the Library of Congress.

Once your book is published, Wheatmark will send the finished copy to the Library of Congress to be cataloged. The cataloger will check the finished book against the LCCN and prepare the cataloging data for the library's database. This is when your book really gets cataloged; up till now it's only had a "control number" (LCCN).

So far, so good.

The problem is that the Library of Congress has a tremendous backlog and so it is likely that when your local librarian receives a copy of your new book, the cataloging data is not yet available for download. To top it off, the LOC does not guarantee that it will catalog every book that it receives.

Fortunately, there is a remedy: advance cataloging-in-publication (CIP) data. We'll take a look at this tomorrow.

Does Your Publisher Offer Returnability?

March 01, 2007 by Atilla Vekony, Publishing Information Manager If you're just beginning your research into publishing companies, don’t be surprised if you stumble across a number of unfamiliar words or concepts.

Initially, you may be put off by these terms. But, please – for the sake of your book – don’t be!

Now that writers have become self-publishers, it’s important to learn some of the vocabulary of traditional publishers.

Today’s publishing word? Returnability. What does it mean? And why should you care?

In layman’s terms, returnability means “whether or not a bookstore can return books to a publisher that they cannot sell.”

Now, let’s pretend for a moment that instead of writing books, you sell books in a lovely little neighborhood bookshop. Every writer in your town dreams of walking into your store and finding her book inside.

Needless to say, you’re inundated on a daily basis with requests from publishers to stock their writers’ books.

How do you, the bookstore owner, decide which books to carry? Since you don’t have time to read all of the books yourself to judge their quality, you have to come up with another criterion.

A good one to use would be returnability, because the financial future of your little bookshop depends on it.

If a publisher whose books you like offers full returnability, your bookstore won’t assume any financial risk by choosing to stock those books.

If the books don’t sell, you simply return them to the publisher at the publisher’s expense.

You – the bookstore owner who’s interested in staying in business – would be wise to choose only to stock books that come with full returnability attached to them by their publisher.

So what does this mean to you, the writer?

Quite simply, it means that you must make sure your publishing company offers full returnability on your book.

Without returnability, your book won’t make it onto shelves – and how will your readers find it then?

Contributors

March 01, 2007 by Wheatmark, Admin

About the Publishing Success Blog

March 01, 2007 by Wheatmark, Admin

The Publishing Success Blog exists to provide entrepreneurs and independent authors with relevant information about the world of publishing, with an emphasis on book marketing.

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